This book provides a comprehensive guide to Industry 4.0 applications, not only introducing implementation aspects but also proposing a conceptual framework with respect to the design principles. In addition, it discusses the effects of Industry 4.0, which are reflected in new business models and workforce transformation. The book then examines the key technological advances that form the pillars of Industry 4.0 and explores their potential technical and economic benefits using examples of real-world applications. The changing dynamics of global production, such as more complex and automated processes, high-level competitiveness and emerging technologies, have paved the way for a new generation of goods, products and services. Moreover, manufacturers are increasingly realizing the value of the data that their processes and products generate. Such trends are transforming manufacturing industry to the next generation, namely Industry 4.0, which is based on the integration of information and communication technologies and industrial technology.The book provides a conceptual framework and roadmap for decision-makers for this transformation

Exploring the elements that constitute the perceived luxuriousness of a brand, this book addresses the changing definitions of the term 'luxury' in today's world. Taking the approach that the concept of luxury evolves from the consumer, the author introduces a conceptual model which explains how the consumer interprets the luxuriousness of a brand. This innovative study analyses the key elements that influence luxury branding, such as extended product, perceived uniqueness, authenticity and context specificity. By critically reflecting on the existing definitions of luxury and its challenges, this book makes a unique contribution to research and an essential read for marketing students and scholars.

From consumer boycotts and buycotts to social movement campaigns, examples of individual and collective actors forging political struggles on markets are manifold. The clothing market has been a privileged site for such contention, with global clothing brands and retailers being targets of consumer mobilization for the past 20 years. Labels and product lines now attest for the ethical quality of clothes, which has, in turn, given rise to ethical fashion. The Fight for Ethical Fashion unveils the actors and processes that have driven this market transformation through a detailed study of the Europe-wide coordinated campaign on workers' rights in the global textile industry - the Clean Clothes Campaign. Drawing on insights from qualitative fieldwork using a wide range of empirical sources, Philip Balsiger traces the emergence of this campaign back to the rise of 'consumer campaigns' and shows how tactics were adapted to market contexts in order to have retailers adopt and monitor codes of conduct. By comparing the interactions between campaigners and their corporate targets in Switzerland and France (two countries with a very different history of consumer mobilization for political issues), this ground-breaking book also reveals how one campaign can provoke contrasting reactions and forms of market change.

This work traces the history and background of the once great American consumer electronics manufacturing industry, an industry that was plagued and finally destroyed by an American-Japanese cartel subverting enforcement of our traditional trade laws. The work is not a Japan-bashing diatribe, but a call for changes in Washington, and a return to free trade in our domestic and foreign commerce.

This monograph adresses the challenge of the environmental assessment of leightweight electric vehicles. It poses the question whether the use of lightweight materials in electric vehicles can reduce the vehicles' environmental impact and compares the environmental performance of a lightweight electric vehicle (LEV) to other types of vehicles. The topical approach focuses on methods from life cycle assessment (LCA), and the book concludes with a comprehensive concept on the environmental assessment of LEVs. The target audience primarily comprises LCA practitioners from research institutes and industry, but it may also be beneficial for graduate students specializing in the field of environmental assessment.

Despite the unprecedented development and growth of knowledge during the 20th century, the evolution of a peaceful 21st century will depend on our ability to address the challenges of prosperity, sustainability, and security. From these challenges, this collection seeks to devise a research agenda to help us to understand better the knowledge-based economy.

Science and technology have acquired increasing importance in the development of contemporary societies. Governments, firms, universities, and research laboratories all take part in the process of building what has been conceptualized as national and/or regional science and technology systems. The actions of these key players and the interactions between them determine the impact of science and technology activities and, more generally, of innovation strategies on the well-being of nations. One of the most important challenges in maximizing this impact is to understand and manage the complex processes that underlie world-class science and technology research, commercialization, and management. In addition, knowledge integration in key subjects is required to enhance economic wealth, shared prosperity, and social and cultural enhancement. In this context, this volume also addresses such important topics as policy and strategies for global sustainable development.

In Velocity: From the Front Line to the Bottom Line, retail automotive expert Dale Pollak reveals how dealers in today's pre-owned automotive marketplace can shift out of low gear toward accelerated profits. Today's dealers are facing increased competition brought on by Internet shopping. Pollak delivers a gut check to dealers employing traditional used car disciplines while revealing new strategies that turn money-losing departments into profit-generating winners. The used vehicle marketplace is less giving and less forgiving than it's ever been before. Astute, investment-minded management processes are essential for today's dealers to survive and thrive, says Pollak.

An account of the Japanese automobile industry, which focuses on its business success as a relative latecomer to the worldwide market. It profiles the leading producers, such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi, and highlights the features of their success in management and design.

This monograph provides an account of how the synthetic nitrogen industry became the forerunner of the 20th-century chemical industry in Europe, the United States and Asia. Based on an earlier SpringerBrief by the same author, which focused on the period of World War I, it expands considerably on the international aspects of the development of the synthetic nitrogen industry in the decade and a half following the war, including the new technologies that rivalled the Haber-Bosch ammonia process. Travis describes the tremendous global impact of fixed nitrogen (as calcium cyanamide and ammonia), including the perceived strategic need for nitrogen (mainly for munitions), and, increasingly, its role in increasing crop yields, including in Italy under Mussolini, and in the Soviet Union under Stalin. The author also reviews the situation in Imperial Japan, including the earliest adoption of the Italian Casale ammonia process, from 1923, and the role of fixed nitrogen in the industrialization of colonial Korea from the late 1920s. Chemists, historians of science and technology, and those interested in world fertilizer production and the development of chemical industry during the first four decades of the twentieth century will find this book of considerable value.

The book demonstrates that food safety is a multidisciplinary scientific discipline that is specifically designed to prevent foodborne illness to consumers. It is generally assumed to be an axiom by both nonprofessionals and professionals alike, that the most developed countries, through their intricate and complex standards, formal trainings and inspections, are always capable of providing much safer food items and beverages to consumers as opposed to the lesser developed countries and regions of the world. Clearly, the available data regarding the morbidity and the mortality in different areas of the world confirms that in developing countries, the prevalence and the incidence of presumptive foodborne illness is much greater. However, other factors need to be taken into consideration in this overall picture: First of all, one of the key issues in developing countries appears to be the availability of safe drinking water, a key element in any food safety strategy. Second, the availability of healthcare facilities, care providers, and medicines in different parts of the world makes the consequences of foodborne illness much more important and life threatening in lesser developed countries than in most developed countries. It would be therefore ethnocentric and rather simplistic to state that the margin of improvement in food safety is only directly proportional to thelevel of development of the society or to the level of complexity of any given national or international standard. Besides standards and regulations, humans as a whole have evolved and adapted different strategies to provide and to ensure food and water safety according to their cultural and historical backgrounds. Our goal is to discuss and to compare these strategies in a cross-cultural and technical approach, according to the realities of different socio-economic, ethnical and social heritages.

One of the greatest challenges for the apparel industry is to produce garments that fit customers properly. "Anthropometry, Apparel Sizing and Design" addresses the need for improved characterization of our populations in order to tailor garments according to size, weight, and shape of consumers. This book reviews techniques in anthropometry, sizing system developments, and their applications to clothing design.

Part one considers a range of anthropometric methods. The text discusses the range of sizing systems, including data mining techniques, useful for bridging the gap between ergonomists and designers. Chapters examine three-dimensional anthropometric methods and multivariate and bivariate analysis for identifying key body dimensions. Part two then explains how to analyze anthropometric data to develop appropriate sizing systems. Here, the book discusses classification and clustering of human body shapes, the importance of national surveys, and using the data obtained to ensure inclusive design strategies. The book covers sizing systems developed for particular groups, apparel size designation, and the potential for international standardization. It considers the advantages of 3D body scanning and computer-aided design, and the use of body motion analysis to address ease allowance requirements of apparel.

With its distinguished editors and international contributors, this work is an essential reference, particularly due to the specific combination of aspects of anthropometry and the sizing of clothing, for researchers, garment designers, students, and manufacturers in the clothing and fashion industry.
Reviews techniques in anthropometry, sizing system developments, and their applications to clothing designExamines 3D anthropometric methods and multivariate and bivariate analysis for identifying key body dimensionsCovers sizing systems developed for particular groups, apparel size designation, and the potential for international standardization

"Fashion Supply Chain Management Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technologies" looks at the application of RFID technologies in such areas as order allocation, garment manufacturing, product tracking, distribution and retail. As supply chains in the textiles and fashion industry become ever more complex and global, and as the shift to mass customization puts more pressure on a rapid and flexible response to customer needs, monitoring and improving supply chain efficiency in the industry becomes crucial. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies offer a unique opportunity to achieve these goals.

This book reviews the role of RFID technologies in the textiles and fashion supply chain to improve distribution, process management and product tracking, garment manufacturing, and assembly line operations. It also explores how RFID technologies can improve order allocation in the supply chain, and how these technologies can also be used for intelligent apparel product cross-selling. Its chapters also discuss measuring the impact of RFID technologies in improving the efficiency of the textile supply chain, and modeling the effectiveness of RFID technologies in improving sales performance in fashion retail outlets.

"Fashion Supply Chain Management Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technologies" is a comprehensive resource for academic researchers, industry managers, and professionals within the fashion industry.
Looks at the application of RFID technologies in order allocation, garment manufacturing, product tracking, distribution, and retailReviews RFID technologies in the textiles and fashion supply chain for improving distribution, process management and product tracking, garment manufacturing, and assembly line operationsFocuses on measuring the impact of RFID technologies on efficiency, and modeling the effectiveness of RFID technologies in improving retail outlet sales

In less than 30 years, the Japanese automobile industry has risen from obscurity to become the world's leading automobile producer. This bibliography, which lists over 600 English-language titles, focuses on the Japanese automobile industry and its development in the postwar era, especially the period of mass expansion from 1980 to the present. It touches particularly on topics pertaining to the Japanese automobile industry as it relates to the U.S. automobile industry, including the operation of the two industries, Japanese transplants in the United States, and government trade issues. It also features case studies of major Japanese automobile manufacturers. Coverage includes books, articles, conference papers, periodicals, government documents, and audio-visual materials. Entries are fully annotated, and the work is indexed.

Tobacco addresses the many interrelated controversies surrounding the historical and current use of tobacco and presents a clear, objective, and thorough treatment of this contentious public health and legal issue. The American Indians valued tobacco as a wonder drug. When Rodrigo de Jerez, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his maiden voyage of 1492, returned to Spain with tobacco, he was accused of associating with Satan and imprisoned when his compatriots saw smoke coming out of his nose. This book covers everything from the history of tobacco to health and social issues such as targeting children. Biographical sketches of key personalities associated with tobacco range from Thomas Edison, who refused to hire anybody who smoked cigarettes, to Jean Nicot, the French Ambassador to Portugal in the mid-1500s, from whose name the word nicotine is derived. This title takes the reader through the myriad of issues that make up the tobacco debate in a clear and unbiased way. A chronology of developments in the history of tobacco use from 1570, when Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and England were already growing tobacco, to the March 27, 2000 legal decision awarding $10 million to a woman who had smoked for 25 years despite warning labels on cigarette packaging A selection of primary source documents from the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Bank, tobacco companies, and antitobacco activists

This is the first book to deal with the innovative technologies in the field of textiles and clothing sustainability. It details a number of sustainable and innovative technologies and highlights their implications in the clothing sector. There are currently various measures to achieve sustainability in the textiles and the clothing industry, including innovations in the manufacturing stage, which is the crux of this book.

The highly competitive world of retail branding and brand packaging is evident in the increasing demand for creating unique, eye-catching and recognisable clothing packaging designs. Designers continue to focus their talent by leveraging striking visual devices into an internal and external messaging system via the product's packaging design, which acts as a portable and extendable marketing tool. This superbly designed book showcases innovative, custom-packaging designs across a range of products, including footwear, clothing and apparel, fashion products, and more. Fashion Packaging Now presents in highly illustrated, full-colour detail how the brand connects with the item and with the packaging itself, and offers unique insight on individual project design production strategies. The case studies are modern, contemporary examples, which also feature many well-known brands, such as Adidas, Nike, and Puma. This book will be a source of inspiration for design aficionados, advertising and merchandise managers, students, brand and retail managers, and educators in the product design and graphic design fields.

This collection takes the perspective that the historiography of science, technology, and medicine needs a broader approach toward regulation. The authors explore the distinct social worlds involved in regulation, the forms of evidence and expertise mobilised, and means of intervention chosen to tame drugs in factories, consulting rooms and courts.

"Dogfight "examines the intense rivalry of the past two decades between the European Airbus consortium and the major U.S. aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. From the Americans' point of view, Airbus has been heavily subsidized by its supporting governments--indeed nearly nationalized--and not exposed to the risks and disciplines of the market place. From the European perspective, Airbus has been a standard-bearer for European technological, manufacturing, and marketing prowess in the face of historical American industrial domination. This dispute has spilled over the bounds of the purely commercial and become a serious transatlantic trade issue.

Although there has been a certain amount of admiring writing about Airbus in Europe, there has been no previous attempt to weigh the issues even-handedly by exploring them on both sides of the Atlantic. Dogfight examines the roots of the conflict in the middle sixties and carries the story forward to the tentative agreement on some of the outstanding issues reached by the U.S. administration and the European Commission in the spring of 1992. In placing the controversy in its political and international context, the author has had access to many of the key players in the industry in both Europe and the United States and has interviewed a large number of politicians, officials, and senior airline and aircraft executives.

Oliver Wight is one of the pioneers of Manufacture Resource Planning (MRPII). Here he introduces the essential concepts and benefits of MRPII in a practical format with easy-to-follow question-and-answer format. Among MRPII topics covered are: how MRPII can benefit a business, the executive's leadership role in implementation, the requirements of a successful MRPII implementation, guidelines for making MRPII effective in any organization, and managing MRPII for long-term competitive advantage.

The last 10 years have seen a seismic shift in therapeutic product development and testing. In both the pharmaceutical (both small and large molecule) and medical device sectors, the vast majority of testing and evaluation of products is not performed within innovator companies, but rather has been outsourced to a growing universe of commercial organizations. The authors both have more than 30 years experience in this field, and both have worked within innovator companies, for CROs, and as consultants in the field. "Contract Research and Development Organizations: Their Role in Global Product Development" has been crafted by these authors to provide a how to guide for all aspects of working with CROs in selecting, working with and ensuring the best possible desirable outcome of having the R&D function, or substantial parts of it, outsourced. It uses as the exemplary case nonclinical safety assessment, biocompatibility and efficacy testing which are to be performed to select the best possible candidate compound, device or formulation and then moving the resulting regulated therapeutic medical product into and through the development process and to marketing approval. But also covered are the contract synthesis of drug substances and corresponding manufacture of biologics and manufacture of products, formulation development, clinical evaluation, regulatory and document preparation support, and use of consultants.

Included in the volume are an exhaustive listing of those CROs in the (drug and device) safety evaluation sector and their contact information and capabilities, and extensive similar listing for the other types of contract service providers. Also included are guidances on how to monitor ongoing work at contract facilities and audit check lists for GLP, GMP and GCP facilities. These listings are international in scope, and a specific chapter addresses working with some of the newer international CROs. "

This comprehensive reference covers the impact of dietary phosphorus in phosphorus physiology, public health and the pathogenesis of disease. Divided into three parts, the first section is an overview of the history of phosphorus and the regulation of phosphorus homeostasis. The second section focuses on specific matters related to phosphorus in the food supply. Clinical applications of the material presented in the preceding sections are pulled together in the third section - including the importance of both phosphorus excess and phosphorus deficiency for the pathogenesis of a wide variety of disease including kidney, cardiovascular, bone and oncologic diseases. Clinical Aspects of Natural and Added Phosphorus in Foods is an indispensable resource for understanding the growing importance of dietary phosphorus content in health and disease, enhancing patient care and moving forward the field of phosphorus science.

Gale explains why international negotiations have not produced a sustainable solution to tropical rainforest degradation. Using an innovative, critical approach to international regimes, the author analyzes the structure and operation of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). He shows how the timber industry and producing- and consuming-country governments created a blocking alliance that favoured developmentalist interests and ideas. The ITTO bolstered this alliance by permitting environmentalists merely to voice, but not to negotiate, their concerns.

Though their usage greatly diminished at the dawn of the scientific area, Indian spices were traditional parts of healthcare for thousands of years. However, over the last decade, largely due to the growth in popularity of complementary and alternative medicine, spices have regained attention due to their physiological and functional benefits. By applying modern research methods to traditional remedies, it is possible to discover what made these spices such effective ailment treatments. Ethnopharmacological Investigation of Indian Spices is a collection of innovative research that analyzes the chemical properties and medical benefits of Indian spices in order to design new therapeutic drugs and for possible utility in the food industry. The book specifically examines the phytochemistry and biosynthetic pathway of active constituents of Indian spices. Highlighting a wide range of topics including pharmacology, antioxidant activity, and anti-cancer research, this book is ideally designed for pharmacologists, pharmacists, physicians, nutritionists, botanists, biotechnicians, biochemists, researchers, academicians, and students at the graduate and post-graduate levels interested in alternative healthcare.